


Hop in let's go.

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: Settle in and find your home [16]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Pepper runs a super-efficient company, Stark Industries has the best HR, Steve's PR team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-06 03:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11591565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: Matías formally accepts the job, does some HR paperwork, and talks to his family.





	Hop in let's go.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are reading this at posting rather than . . . however much later before I post other things, then I do promise that the references to the Avengers as an active team WILL BE EXPLAINED. Promise. (Kill me.)

Stark Industries' HR is terrifying, but in a good way. 

Jared's friend gets back to Matías in the morning with the reassuring news that there's nothing hinky in the contract at all, that the NDA is a bit more comprehensive than most but on the other hand is pretty clear and direct about not only what can and can't be discussed but also in outlining who to talk to if he's ever wondering about something, and that if he's got half an hour she'll walk him through everything there on the phone. 

Matías totally has half an hour, so she walks him through everything on the phone, and overall he's pretty happy with what he hears. At least the part of him that isn't shrieking like a fourteen year old fan-girl going to her idol's concert is happy with it. That part of him is just . . . completely overwhelmed. And shrieking. It isn't any help, though, so he ignores it and decides there's no reason at all not to get stuff over with ASAP.

So he sends Yolanda an email, and then she gives him a call, and tells him that if he likes he can bring things back in and they can sign things and so on, and he can let them know how long he thinks it'll take to be ready to get started. So he should come down and just let the young woman at the main desk on Level 2 know who he is and everything'll get sorted out. 

Matías tells her he'll be along sometime after 2 pm. 

 

First, he drags Sharina out for lunch. It makes her a bit cranky with him, to start with, because she's still On Deadline, but as she starts to inhale the burger she orders she admits that maybe picking at yoghurt, lime-and-salt tortilla chips and some fruit for the last two days isn't really eating properly. 

They talk about her project, which is some technical writing: a last minute thing someone needs before a big package of documents can go out, where they didn't realize they didn't have it until the beginning of last week. Matías points out that he hopes she's charging them a reasonable rate for that, and Sharina assures him she is. He's got no idea what reasonable rates are in freelance stuff like she does, so he doesn't ask for specifics, but just privately hopes she really is charging enough. 

Sharina is _good_ at her stuff: she's always got like six things on the go, and money coming in. She's willing to do this kind of emergency panicky writing, and she does it pretty well, and he knows her name gets passed around. But Matías honestly always worries that people he knows aren't charging enough for their work. It's really easy to undervalue yourself. 

She gets excited when he tells her what the job he just got actually _is_ , but promises not to blab all over the place. She asks about his aunt and uncle and his cousins, and he asks about her rat and notes that she's _still_ hardcore about avoiding talking about her half-sister, or her family. He leaves it alone. 

They have dessert, Matías wins the argument about who's going to pay (and it's him), and then Sharina walks back to her apartment, and he heads to SI. 

 

He meets Leo Coyden, executive director, because - or so Matías is told - the VP, Ira Morgan, is in meetings. Matías nods and says he totally understands, no problem at all, and doesn't bother mentioning that seriously, he was not expecting to be welcomed and initiated by The Top Of The Food Chain _anyway_. He'd actually started entry-level, at his last job. Hadn't _stayed_ there, hell no, but he'd started there. He definitely has some rapid processing to do at the idea of meeting _this_ high up on his _way in_.

He gets why. It makes sense, especially given the whole maybe-there's-a-war coming. But it's still a bit mind-blowing when you put it in context with everything else. Actually everything about this is mind-blowing. Matías has in general decided to just keep letting his mind be blown, at least a bit, and go forward projecting "slightly stunned, but keen to get to grips with everything and get down to work" since it's, you know, more or less the truth. So it doesn't take much work. 

It would take work to try to project cool and blasé and he's not sure he'd succeed. 

Coyden's a slightly portly, middle-aged black guy who to Matías just really seems like he should be a high-school teacher. Maybe History, or English. And he'd be that teacher everyone wants to get, the one who really knows his stuff and doesn't stick to the curriculum and both actually cares whether or not you understand and also knows how to make you understand, instead of just getting upset with you for not keeping up. 

He's got exactly the kind of handshake that makes you feel comfortable, too, and faint scars of teenage acne on his cheeks. He wears a nice dusty rose shirt in Italian linen instead of anything more like a suit, and he keeps a pair of reading glasses in the pocket. When he smiles it's a broad, beaming smile, and there's a gap between his front teeth. 

He immediately invites Matías to use his given name, around about the time he extends his hand, just after Matías's confirmed who he is. Matías puts that back in his brain to process and maybe it'll've gotten all the way through by the end of the meeting. Maybe. 

"Must seem a bit like being hit with a tornado," Coyden says as the handshake ends, turning the act of releasing Matías' hand into a gesture for him to sit down on the other side of the desk. 

Matías spreads his hands in a gesture that's both a shrug and an absolution. "I understand there's a bit of a timeline," he says, wryly understating, and Coyden actually lets out a short laugh. 

"Yeah," he says, "you could say that. It's not as dire as it could be, I do know - Yolanda was honestly prepping to go into at least the initial stages of the launch with a delegated team instead of a specific individual in your position, so a lot of the general work is done. But that was a stop-gap measure, and we'd like to get you settled in as fast as possible." 

The man is clearly a king of multitasking: as he talks he's pulling stuff up on his computer screen and out of files he has settled at the side of his desk, and he doesn't miss a beat while he's at it. Matías considers, and finally decides to go with the most innocuous version of the question that's been a bit on his mind since he had any time to think yesterday - not the kind that would affect any of his big decisions, of course, but still. He is curious. 

"I'll admit, I'm surprised it wasn't easier to find someone internally," he says. "I really don't get the impression there's anyone coasting here, I have to say." 

Coyden, who's been typing away rapidly in the way you do when you're pulling up different forms and things, gives Matías a smile and a knowing look over his reading glasses. 

"Well, now, that's a bit of why you're stuck in here talking to me. Now that I've got everything here - " he goes on, gesturing to the things on his desk as he gets up, "we might as well have a cup of something while we chat. This magical machine," he says, and gestures to something that looks sort of like a space age Nespresso except much more elegant, "makes lattes so I don't make a mess trying, and also makes other things if I hit the buttons with the labels on it. What would you like?" 

Matías goes for a latte because he's already had quite a bit of coffee and probably shouldn't go for pure espresso without putting more food in his stomach first. The machine is definitely more than a space-age Nespresso, though, and Matías watches in a certain amount of awe as what amounts to a perfectly poured latte comes out the other end, complete with the foamed-milk sketch of an oak leaf. Okay, so it takes a bit longer than a normal coffee machine, but still. 

That's basically witchcraft. 

"Mr Stark," Coyden says, passing Matías his cup as the machine gets on with the next drink, "has a kind of endless private project around making the perfect automatic hot drink machine. He's never been happy with one yet, though, so the last model gets kicked out of his office once every few months. Archives's always kept them, in case the design ever gets pulled up for mass production, and if you happen to have really liked the way one made a certain drink, and Facilities likes you a lot, you can finagle having one of the discards in your own office. I liked this one." 

"I can see why," Matías replies honestly, and Coyden smiles and settles back in his chair. 

"That more or less leads us in though," he says, holding the mug a little meditatively. "Gives us a bridge into some of the . . . _special_ aspects of working here at HQ."

Matías raises his mug a bit, and then tries the latte. It's amazing. 

Coyden opens with, "Like everyone else on the planet, I'm sure, you've heard the explanations of all the ways in which the Avengers qua Avengers and Stark Industries are _not_ a unit. Now as it happens, they're all actually true." 

Matías nods. He'd actually been interested enough to look some of the stuff up, and legally Stark-as-his-own-self technically leases the Stark development space he uses for projects, and the facilities that the Avengers as a team use to train and as tactical HQ when they need it. The famous Maria Hill even technically has two jobs, one as the Internal Director of Operations for Stark Industries, and one as Chief of Operations for the Avengers, with a deputy for the former that she can delegate every single part of that job to on the totally intermittent and unpredictable occasions when the latter takes over her life. 

That's only been the one time, though, so far, the hostage mess in Belize. At least as far as the public knows. Everything else has just been either consultation - a lot of Romanoff and Barton doing that, if you follow the news stories, plus a bit with Stark and Banner - or one or two, like Stark and Banner digging out the mine collapse in Bolivia. Matías had watched that and honestly, watching the Hulk basically hold up a mountainside was even more awe inspiring than watching him punch an alien monster thing dead in its tracks. 

There's a certain extent to which the whole bit about separation is a bit disingenuous, but, Matías knows, there's a deeper one to which it's not. If for any reason SI and the Avengers actually needed to be separated, it could technically be done in a matter of hours, or at least as soon as the physical equipment and so on could get moved to a new location. 

In a fairly recent interview, someone had - in that brightly innocent we're-just-so-curious way that implies all kinds of things while letting the interviewer pretend it's Just A Question - asked Potts why she seemed content, even in favour, of keeping Avengers operations centred on the Tower. Which still doesn't have an official rename, but which fewer and fewer people call "Stark" Tower these days. 

Potts had replied, very dryly, "Because it keeps my CIO where I can see him, and readily ensure he hasn't blown himself through a concrete wall. Or at least if he has, we can get him to the hospital ASAP and before the damage turns terminal. You might not have heard of him, but he is the sole major innovator behind seventy percent of our current flagship products and a significant and necessary contributor to a further twenty percent, so as a matter of policy the company would like to keep him alive and as free of traumatic brain injury as possible." 

The rider "you're an idiot and your question was stupid and your journalism is hackneyed and based excessively on attempting to bait people for petty reasons" wasn't explicitly spoken, but the sheer dry matter-of-factness of the answer carried it pretty clearly. And it was a stupid question. Potts might run Stark Industries now - and after the AIM Incident, both she _and_ Stark had in fact made it very clear that she did, and further more she was absolutely out of a certain kind of fuck to give about what anyone thought of that - but that just put Tony Stark back where, as far as Matías's ever been able to tell, he wants to be. He's definitely still SI's golden goose. 

And besides, he might be inventing some shit initially for Avengers' use, but frankly Matías can't imagine him not passing the patents down through SI, and there's a lot of stuff there that still fits just fine with the No Weapons edict that Potts is sticking to like glue. Like whatever the hell the Captain America and Black Widow outfits are made of these days. Matías is absolutely sure that the Belize affair should have left both outfits in rags, but the news footage suggests not, and it's not like either individual would have had time to go change. Whatever that material is, Matías is sure there are potential millions to be made with it. 

Here and now, Coyden looks thoughtfully meditative. "Bluntly, given all the particulars and details of the situation, especially the less important but not unimportant issues of trademark and image-control, it'd just be damn stupid not to make use of SI's resources for what we do best. So we just arrange things internally so that the organizational structure makes sense, keeps things neatly separated, and nobody gets in each other's way. As it happens, it was pretty easy to do that for most of the others. We already had dedicated teams for 'Iron Man' specific stuff, so that was simple enough." 

He chuckles and Matías grins. Nobody could argue that Tony Stark wasn't well ahead of the curve when it came to managing his own image as a superhero, even if how he's done it has undergone more than one major shift since the famous "I Am Iron Man" conference. Matías honestly appreciated that. There's no point pretending that isn't a factor, in this day and age. 

"Dr Banner was our first additional concern," Coyden goes on, "and he was pretty simple, since his overall policy can be summed up as 'please don't make me have to think about this, at all, ever'." 

Matías actually guffaws slightly. It's obvious Coyden's going for the laugh with that one, and he also manages to get across the vehemence and Banner's apparent unease with his own celebrity really well. 

"So we set things up to balance best public image versus least required involvement by himself or disruption to his life, and voilá," Coyden says, gesturing slightly with one hand. "He's got a few exceptions, I think his communications team has a list of parameters for passing things through to him personally and most of them have to do with students in science and vulnerable positions, but he's pretty straight-forward. The revenue goes directly into a few charitable funds, scholarships and bursaries, and when the issue arose we added Dr Ross into the same team." 

"I did see an action-figure for her recently," Matías notes. "It was an LE, but - " 

"She's a bit tickled about that," Coyden says, smiling. "Not that she'll talk about it without deflecting. She's a lovely woman, by the way. Long story short, though, we took on Thor after the attack in Greenwich, about the same time as Legal arranged to get him an Icelandic passport. Not that that took much to arrange," Coyden adds. "As far as I heard de los Santos just called someone to let them know that Thor Odinsson was planning on living on Earth for a few years and it'd be convenient if he had a citizenship and a passport and so on, and by the end of the next day the Althing wanted to know when he would be there for an official little ceremony." 

Matías wonders how big that party _was_. He's met an Icelander or two, and they definitely knew how to have a good time. 

"Then we got Ms Romanoff and Mr Barton after Insight," Coyden continues. "We as in the company also got Ms Hill, who immediately arranged to hire a certain number of surviving ex-SHIELD administrative employees, who've honestly been a major net benefit. They got together with Yolanda and hashed out how to work the Black Widow and Hawkeye end of things themselves, based on experience with the two. 

"That's a bit more complex than one might think, I gather," he notes, looking serious for a moment. "There was an incident about a month ago that involved Ms Romanoff intervening in what turned out to be a child abuse situation. She made the determination that the teenager in question was in a situation that constituted a serious danger to her life, based on some details in some fan-mail the girl sent, and that turned out to be correct. And a lot closer call than anybody liked. And with that situation, Ms Romanoff was pretty adamant it _not_ be publicized for a number of reasons, including but not limited to being unwilling to expose the girl to the fallout, so there were a bunch of containment measures too."

Matías gives the appropriate expression of _holy shit_ without interrupting as Coyden goes on. 

"None of Mr Barton's concerns have been quite that dramatic, as far as I know, but there've been a few to manage on his end." He takes a deep breath and says, "Which brings us to Captain Rogers, where I'm sure you've already had a large number of the potential problems jump out at you." 

"You could say that," Matías acknowledges, but doesn't go on at length, curious to see where this goes. 

Coyden sits forward and steeples his hands on his desk. "Yeah, I thought so. The thing is, I've given you this overview because it gives you some context for how a major factor here is the personalities involved, despite none of those personalities actually being that unpleasant or even difficult to work with." 

Then he gives Matías a searching look and, to Matías' mild bewilderment, grins widely. "You are good," he says, reaching for his coffee. "Since I know you couldn't possibly have missed the fact that I just said Tony Stark wasn't difficult to work with, but you didn't show anything on your face right there. Well done." 

Matías let himself laugh a little because okay, yes: he both had noted that, had the predictable thoughts, and had definitely decided not to say anything about it even with his face. He shrugs and spreads his hands, and takes the last bit of his own latte as well. "I figured it wasn't that relevant to the moment?" he offers, and Coyden grins again. 

"Firstly, Mr Stark isn't actually that hard to work with," he says, "believe it or not. The vast majority of the time, the only people who deal with much shit with him are his actual PA, his security detail, and anybody he mentally classes as a peer within the company structure. And that's something which has nothing to do with job titles - basically if you work _for_ him, he's mostly pretty polite and at most he's giving you a headache because he's not doing something that someone else assumed he would, but he also tends to make damn sure that doesn't fall on anyone else's head," Coyden explains. "It's when he sees you as working _with_ him instead that he starts being a major pain in the ass." 

"Or if you're his PA or his security detail?" Matías adds, because he's curious about that one. 

"The security thing's sort of middle of the road," Coyden replies, "and mostly has to do with how before Ms Hill, Mr Hogan ran security and Mr Hogan is one of the few people in the world Mr Stark considers a friend, and if Mr Stark considers you a friend your life can be pretty exciting. Then there's how after Ms Hill, Ms Hill runs security and she honestly falls under that qualifier of 'working with'. Basically, StarkSec knows to just push any crap he's giving them right up the chain to the top ASAP. As for his PA, we managed to find him someone who can handle him. Actually seems to enjoy it, as it happens. Which is part of the issue of personalities." 

He sobers a little and seems to consider his words. "The thing is, Matías, that every one of these people has more issues than National Geographic. Except possibly Thor," he adds, while Matías blinks at the blunt phrasing, "but he's working in a culture so alien it might as well be its own set of issues, because the expectations are so different, so it becomes about the same thing - it was easier to _get_ him Icelandic citizenship than it was to explain exactly how that solved the problem of moving around the planet pretty freely, but also where it didn't do that, and how international travel and so on worked, and a hundred thousand other things. Everyone else, well. You can start with all kinds of exciting PTSD and then get into the part where not a damn one of them really lives in the same world as anyone else, or at least if they do it's almost as new to them as Thor, and well . . . " he spreads his hands. 

Matías nods slowly. 

"It's honestly remarkable they can manage to work as a team," Coyden says, "and when it matters, by which I mean people's lives are at stake, they can. And then when it doesn't matter, well, sometimes things are a little more interesting." He shrugs. "And trust me, at least as it concerns the six-person unit of 'the Avengers', everyone who works in this Tower knows more about them than you'd think reasonable. Avengers-related gossip is a major form of entertainment around here, especially since basically all of it is _very_ much covered by the NDAs which means work is the only place people can talk about it freely. At this point spotting and watching has its own slang term." 

"Yolanda mentioned it," Matías supplies. "'Venging', I think she said?" 

"Yeah," Coyden says, with a slight chuckle of the 'what will they think of next' kind. "Based off 'birding', apparently - bird-watching," he supplies. "The point being that I can now pull all of this together to assure you that while Mr Stark is absolutely willing to go so far as to take a match to his own US citizenship in order to support Captain Rogers, they also drive each other up the damn wall much more often than not and that some of the nature of that support itself makes their relationship a bit tricky on the personal level." 

Matías tilts his head, waiting, because it hasn't totally got into focus for him yet. 

"On top of that," Coyden says, a bit more serious again, "as you may or may not realize - as people often don't think about these things, for obvious reasons - Captain Rogers' previous experiences with publicity of any sort were with active, directed, deliberate propaganda. Quite a lot of it either directly dishonest, or dishonest around the edges. In the 40s, no less, so think about all the extra prejudices and bullshit tucked in around there.

"So he's actually both extremely aware of the uses and potential misuses of his public image, while being extremely wary of, well, anyone who wants to tell him how to manage it, _and_ not really wanting to, or being suited to, dealing with it himself." Coyden's smile is a bit dark. "I'm sure you'll get the full file, but it is public knowledge that we actually started managing Captain America licensing almost immediately after the Battle of New York, entirely because he found out how his image was being used and by whom it was being sold - and how they ran their businesses - and got pretty upset about it. That's why the relaunch has taken so long, and why everything's been so comprehensive." 

Coyden takes a minute to finish his coffee before he continues, "Upshot of which is, especially with the other considerations in this case, we've wanted to find someone whose personal qualities, we felt, could take at least some of the edge off his instinctive mistrust and his dislike of the entire process. Someone he could relate to as, basically, a specialist who's here to manage this part of things so he doesn't have to - rather than as part of a whole mechanism that's out to get him. Now while we have some excellent people working for us in PR, most of whom I hope you'll get the chance to work with, everyone - including the original short-list of candidates - felt pretty strongly that even if Captain Rogers didn't mean it to, the association with a commercial corporate background would make that a difficult thing to do. 

"Basically, his strongest association with people coming up through SI is that they're here to sell things," Coyden summarizes. 

Slowly, Matías says, "Whereas with me - " 

"With any external hire," Coyden says, nodding, "there's a better chance of skipping that. In your particular case, you're an excellent candidate overall - and as the person who vetted you," he adds, smiling slightly, "after Lorraine came running in to pitch you to Yolanda, I can assure you we wouldn't've followed up if you didn't also present as an excellent candidate overall - but most importantly you're coming to this project with your particular recent history. A history that shows pretty pointedly that you prioritize things other than profit. We think that'll work significantly to your advantage, and that yes, given the givens, and the potential for shit to get real interesting once it hits the fan, we think that's important." 

He gave another sudden, disarming grin. "No pressure." 

 

They fill out paperwork and Matías fills in all the necessary details (no spouse, no dependants, aunt and uncle beneficiaries of anything he happens to have should he drop dead, pre-existing heart murmur but it's considered no big deal unless he starts showing other symptoms, and so on), and discovers that SI is happy to cover a moving company, especially if it means he'll be able to start tomorrow. 

He's pretty much cool with starting tomorrow, and even more cool with not having to sort out moving on his own. 

He also gets his retinas scanned and his fingerprints recorded, because some of the stuff SI does has just that level of security and it's just easier that way. He once again feels like he's stepped into a sci-fi movie. 

It feels like a huge rush, because it is a huge rush, but Matías thinks: _fuck, what else do I have to do?_

At least. 

That's what he thinks with the part of him that's a bit detached, and manages to think about the situation in a sort of objective, semi-reasonable fashion. 

The part of him that's about feeling, _that_ just _wants_ to throw himself at everything right now. Hell, _tonight_ even, who needs to wait until tomorrow? Who needs sleep? He can sleep when he's dead!

That part is _excited_. And a bit territorial, in a strange, non-confrontational way - it's not like he'd snap at anyone, but there are projects _on the go_ in territory that's supposedly now his, and he wants to know about them and know what's going on and what's coming next and all the rest. Like, yesterday. 

Besides, the faster he starts _working_ , the less time he'll have to get totally overwhelmed and more than a little freaked out and intimidated by the fact that SI's also apparently happy to find him a furnished rental for as long as it takes him to find his own place and get settled in it. And yeah, he realizes that in the grand scheme of things this isn't really that big a deal and especially considering they're in the middle of building what amounts to a functional company town for the show-case arc reactor facility in Assam . . . .

The scale of that project is mind-boggling. Truly mind-boggling.

So in the grand scheme of things, it's no big deal and not entirely surprising and all that shit. And in the small, personal scheme of things, Matías figures the less time he has for his internal hysterical laughter at Coyden's dry "no pressure" to work on being external, the better. And if he puts a week, two weeks of solid work into things before it all catches up with him, then at least he'll have - hopefully - something to hold up against the internal panic. 

That or he'll've screwed everything up completely, and it'll be over anyway. Either way. 

He tells Ofelia more or less that, and she agrees with him. "I was going to tell you not to sit on this," she says. "You're not somebody who does well easing into stuff, Matti." 

"I feel a bit more in the deep end than I'm entirely comfortable with right now, Fee," he replies, "but yeah, I can't deny that." 

"Whatever," Ofelia says. "I've got vacay coming in like . . . three weeks, I'll hop out to NYC and you can freak out at me then, I'll get you drunk and pour you into bed and we'll be fine." Her tone's the gentle teasing that means she knows exactly what he's wrangling and she's trying to help him not get mired. He appreciates it. 

"What would I do without you," he volleys back, though, because it's all part of the game. 

"Die," she replies promptly. "Horribly. Alone. Probably stressed the fuck out. You called your family yet?" 

"Yeah you had to remind me didn't you," he sighs, half sitting on the counter-top in the rental (that, naturally, is nicer than anything he's ever actually owned or even rented long-term, and definitely has beautiful granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances). 

"Matti, you wait any longer than tonight your aunt's gonna kill you," Ofelia says, her voice suddenly very serious. "She's gonna kill you by being _so hurt_ and wanting to know why you didn't _tell_ her _sooner_ \- " 

Matías groans. "Stop, Fee, please," he says, because she's managing his aunt's stresses and rhythms too well. 

" - that you will dissolve into a puddle of remorseful goo, and then who's gonna sort out Captain America's action figures?" Ofelia finishes, ignoring him. "Get off the phone to me and call your aunt and uncle, Matías, seriously." 

She's not wrong. And it's not even like he doesn't want to tell them. And at least he can reasonably claim the time-difference between here and LA, so he doesn't get stuck on the phone for hours rehashing every single detail, because he has to wait until after six to be sure of catching both his aunt and his uncle at home and that's nine in New York, it's just . . . 

It's just. Like it's always "it's just". The same "it's just" it's been for years, and the one he can never explain. 

Matías has a really long shower, making do with his phone's speakers to play _Hamilton_ at him and keep him from having to think, although he does end up with Fee's voice telling him that considering the guy gets his ass shot in a really dumb duel at the end, he maybe should be a bit more worried about identifying with the eponymous character quite so much. But he gets that voice all the time, since she outright said it the first time he called her up and said she _had to listen to it, right now_ , because Lin Manuel Miranda was writing his soul. 

Someday Fee's soul is going to be explored in someone else's art and Matías will jump on the chance to mock the shit out of her for it. 

So he showers. Then he pulls on the sweats and racer-back he sleeps in, pours himself some of the tequila he specifically bought on the way here, and dials his aunt's number. 

It turns into exactly the production he expects. Of course. Not that it's a bad production, it's just . . . a production. 

His aunt demands he repeat himself four times, and promise her he's not playing a prank, and then repeat himself again. By that time his uncle's worked up enough to steal the phone from her and demand he repeat himself twice more, and further swear on his parents' graves that he's not playing a prank. And then it turns out that not only are Michaela and Gracie home for supper, but Veronica and Rafael _and_ Josie are all there, and Josie demands that they hang up and then that Matías Skype her on her tablet so everyone can talk at him at once. 

And he can, of course, repeat the whole thing at least once more, except this time with the whole story - minus the sex and the swearing. Which he feels is kind of hilarious since none of it was his sex, or even like that interesting, but while his aunt is okay with Ofelia explaining to Gracie that she, Ofelia, has more than one boyfriend at a time but it's okay because they all talk about it, she's less comfortable with Gracie knowing that to be honest none of the arrangements are really all the way into what most people would call "boyfriend". 

Gracie's eyes are about as big as dinner-plates through the whole thing. Matías does have to defend her briefly for being way more excited that he'll be working in proximity to the Black Widow than for the part where he'll be actually looking after Captain America. 

"Hey," he says, "hey hey back off, all of you, she's seven, she's allowed to prioritize in her role-models and her priorities don't have to be yours. Come on, she's her own person." And then he promises that, if he gets the chance, he will in fact tell the Black Widow that Gracie thinks she's amazing. 

It takes about an hour before he can escape, and he feels more wrung out by the Skype session than he does by anything else that's happened the last two days. When Veronica points out that it's almost ten thirty for him and he's got work tomorrow and they need to let him sleep, Matías actually puts a note in his reminders-app to send her flowers or something. She always has been the most considerate of his cousins, but still. 

It can get hard to explain why he lives so far away from the rest of his family. It's not like there's anything wrong with them, because there isn't. And he loves all of them like crazy, he really does. And they love him. And they're as supportive and warm and loving as anybody could want. 

And it takes about five minutes of them - especially all of them at once, or even as in this case seven of them at once and that's not even close to "all" - and he feels like a stressed out cat who wants to go hide under the bed. People who've watched him revel in being the middle of a party crowd can't figure out how that works. He's joked more than once that Ofelia's his best friend because she _gets_ it. 

Sort of joked. 

He gives himself another medicinal shot of tequila and goes to bed. But just before he turns out the light his phone buzzes, and he flicks it on to check the text message. 

It's from his uncle, who barely texts and kind of hates smartphones - but who tonight has taken the time to struggle through the touch-screen keyboard to send, _Your father would be so proud his head would explode._

And okay, maybe Matías' eyes are a _little_ misty before he closes them for the night. 

Maybe.


End file.
